Vibrating flow feed conveyors are used in many industries to convey bulk materials from one location to another. In the foundry industry, for example, vibrating flow feed conveyors are used to feed charges of scrap metal into furnaces. These conveyors are designed to move bulk material along a horizontal, or almost horizontal, path in a controlled system. They can be used to merely transport material from one point to another or to perform various functions on the material while it is en route, such as cooling, drying, blending, metering, spreading and the like.
Vibrating conveyors can be fed by a belt conveyor, but are more commonly used to provide a precisely controlled outlet from a bin, hopper or chute. Regardless of how they are fed, vibrating conveyors take a vertical flow of material and change the direction of movement up to 90.degree..
A vibrating conveyor basically consists of a base or reaction mass and a driven mass connected to each other by springs. The base, sometimes also called a frame, is excited by a power source such as an electromagnetic or electromechanical drive. A trough, or pan, forms part of the driven mass and serves as the material carrying surface. Normally, the pan is more-or-less permanently affixed to the frame, such as by being bolted to it. In operation, the pan is moved alternately forward and up, then down and back, by the power source. This causes the conveyed material to move along the pan surface in a series of short hops. Amplitude or frequency of vibration can be adjusted to control conveyor speed and output.